The American Renaissance and its Background in Intellectual History

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26370271
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Literature in English
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: YOSHIKUNI Hiroki 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 准教授 (50600186)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: アメリカ文学 / 比較文学 / ロマン主義 / 小説 / 個人主義 / ハーマン・メルヴィル / イマヌエル・カント

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research project attempted to read the American Renaissance in relation to the European intellectual history--especially to the transmission of thought from Kant’s critical philosophy to romanticism--focusing on the relationship between the philosophical idea of freedom and the literary genre of the novel and also on the transformation of the former by being linked to the latter. By closely reading the texts of the American Renaissance, it has become clear that because of the American authors’ belated reception of the idea and the genre, which had already been popularized in Europe when they started writing their works, their responses were critical: they read the combination of the two as banality. Rather than totally abandon the idea of freedom, however, they recovered the freshness of the idea of freedom by reinventing a new way to manifest the idea in the sensible sphere of experience.

Free Research Field

アメリカ文学